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“Showing you how much you mean to me.”

“I may be pregnant with your child, and appreciate your body, but I don’t think now is the time, Warren.” She’s trying to scold me and sound stern, but her breath hitches a little when I strip off the shirt and stand bare chested in front of her. Every single one of my tattoos on display.

“Ha, so you admit it’s my child.”

She glowers at me, but I ignore it. Reaching out I grab her hand and place it flat on my chest right over my anchor tattoo, right over my heart. Her small hand is warm against my cool skin, and it nearly burns me. Her fingers twitch and brush against the inked skin.

“Do you remember when I got this tattoo?”

Her forehead pinches and she stares at it trying to recall when I came home with the piece. To be fair I hadn’t told anyone I had gotten it and it was already healed by the time she saw it.

“Um, I think I was twenty-one. You never did tell us why you got it. we just thought it was another for your growing collection.”

“I got it when you were dating that dipstick, Roy.”

Bambi quirks her head and briefly looks up at me. This close I can see every freckle on her pink cheeks, and I begin trailing a path across them like I have so many times before. Her face is so familiar and yet every time I look at her, I find something new to appreciate.

“Roy?”

“Yeah. It was your first serious relationship, and I wasn’t taking it well. You’d always beenmyBambi and here was some other guy taking you from me. I knew I couldn’t have you, but I didn’t want to share you either. So, I drew this anchor,” I pick up her finger and place it right where her name hides in the shapes and trace the letters one by one. “Put your name in it and carved it into my chest right over my heart. Cementing a piece of you on me for eternity.”

Her lashes flutter as she leans closer to follow the path of her finger, her eyes widening when she finally realizes what’s been there all along right in front of her.

“B-A-M-B-I. Because you’re my Bambi. Everyone else gets Raelyn, but no one can have my Bambi.”

“How did I never see it before?”

“It’s easy for people to not see what’s right in front of them. I knew you were there the whole time and still never told you how I felt about you.Feelabout you. I’m just as much to blame.”

I release her hand, but she doesn’t stop tracing the patterns, learning the new shape within.

“You’re my anchor, Bambi. You hold me steady when I want to drift in the waves. When I feel lost at sea, you are the one thing that anchors me in place and keeps me from losing my way.Although I fear I may have gotten lost for a time, once again you pulled me where I need to be.”

She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and inspects my chest, quietly listening to me bare my entire fucking soul to her.

Please don’t say it’s too late. Please don’t make me leave again.

“Even so, you left. I can’t trust that you won’t leave again. Leaving this town and everyone in it behind is all you’ve ever talked about since we were teenagers. Why would I believe that now you will stay? That anything has changed? Like you said yourself, you felt like this for me a long time ago. If it wasn’t enough then, why is it enough now?”

My confidence and hope crack a little at her words, but she’s right to question me. I’ve been in love with her for so long and never done anything about it. My feelings for her never stopped me from building my boat and sailing away at the first opportunity I got. I kept her at arm’s length for years. I was a fool, and it’s only in getting what I always wanted that I realize it was never what I needed. I’m going to have to prove this to her.

Determination settles in my spine, because she didn’t say no, she didn’t turn me away. There’s still hope.

“Because now I’m seeing clearly. I’m not letting my past and my parents cloud my decisions any longer. I never thought my leaving would affect you so much. I was only focused on myself and getting away, thinking once I did everything would be better.”

“Was it?”

I reach up and cover her hand still resting on my chest, drawing strength from her touch.

“No. It was worse. I thought seeing the world would help me find my place in it. All it did was show me I’d already found my place and left it.”

Leaning down so we’re eye level, I reach out with my free hand and let it hover over her belly silently asking to touch her. She nods and for the first time I reach out and touch our growing son inside her belly. Feeling him move and shift within. I’m so dazed by him and her that I almost forget what I was going to say.

“I promise I will prove to you things are different. That the most important people in my life now are you and him. Everyone else can fuck off.”

My crass, but honest words make her chuckle. Her free hand cradling mine on her stomach. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m right where I should be.

Chapter 17: Raelyn